Quake is a disaster novel of epic proportions that will have listeners thinking twice about their next trip to New York City. New York City has seen its share of disasters: Terrorist attacks, blackouts, hurricanes, floods. But nothing has prepared the Big Apple for the biggest earthquake to ever hit the United States - 9.0 on the Richter scale. Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs are a smoldering catastrophe, plunging New York into terrifying chaos. Skyscrapers and bridges have collapsed, killing hundreds of thousands. For a handful of survivors, the nightmare is just beginning. Clawing north, navigating the ruined city amid violent aftershocks, FBI agent Francisco Mendoza hopes to reunite with his wife. Assistant US Attorney Nick Dykstra is hell-bent on finding his daughter way uptown at Columbia University - before a 9/11 conspirator who escaped during the quake finds her first. But the Indian Point nuclear power plant, forty miles north, is severely damaged. A deadly cloud of radiation is drifting toward the city. The only chance for survival is going down into the subways - and deeper still.
Release date:
June 1, 2014
Publisher:
Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Print pages:
66
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Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Dykstra and Special Agent Francisco Mendoza of the FBI completely lost track of time during their trek north through the subway tunnel from Chambers Street to Canal. At the point where the J line merged with the R, they could finally see a train stopped cold dead ahead. Nick figured they’d walked no more than half a mile, but it was a half mile along an underground train track littered with fallen pipes and beams of steel, lousy with rats and other vermin. And though neither man knew the intricacies of the New York City subway system, both men had decided to stay well clear of the third rail.
The train up ahead was dark and, as they came closer, Nick could see that its cars were at an odd angle, indicating that the train had gone off the rails. Despite the searing pain in Nick’s left leg, he hurried his step and heard Mendoza’s footfalls quicken behind him.
“Looks like it just barely made it into Canal Street station,” Nick said. “At least the first half of the train did.”
Nick garnered some momentum and leapt onto the backside of the last car, grabbing hold of the thick chain to pull himself up. Painfully, he lifted his left leg over the chain, followed by his right. Cupping his fingers around his eyes, he put his face to the rear Plexiglas window and peered inside.
There was what looked like the body of an elderly homeless man lying lengthwise across the floor, his head propped up against a subway pole in the center of the car. Nick immediately went to work on the door and it unlatched and glided open surprisingly easily. As soon as the door slid open, an awful stench smacked Nick squarely in the face. But it wasn’t the stench of the dead; it was the peculiarly pungent odor of a vagrant who hadn’t gained access to a shower in months.
The dead don’t smell yet, he thought. It’s only been a few hours at most.
He instinctively glanced at his watch but it was useless. Even if it weren’t too dark to read the watch, the old Rolex he’d inherited from his father six years ago wouldn’t have done him any good. At some point during the quake, the protective glass had cracked, dust had gotten inside, and the large and small hands were forever frozen in place.
Breathing through his mouth, Nick stepped into the car. He walked slowly, balancing himself with the overhead bar on the right so as not to slide to the left, giving into gravity and the train’s odd angle. As he stepped past the old man, he looked down for signs of life, but the man’s chest didn’t appear to be moving and there was no sound emanating from the vagrant’s nose and mouth, not so much as a quiet snore.
Once he cleared the body, he focused on the car ahead. The train wouldn’t have been crowded at the time the first tremor struck, but if the cars were relatively empty, Nick was sure there would be survivors. And if there were survivors—
Something suddenly gripped Nick’s left ankle and he yelped in pain as it twisted and he lost his balance and fell to the floor. Startled, he looked back and stared into the vagrant’s wild bloodshot eyes as the man attempted to drag himself forward, using Nick’s left leg as a rope.
“Gonna kill you for this, mothafucka,” the old man muttered as he tucked one hand into his filthy overcoat and withdrew a blade.
Nick didn’t hesitate. He kicked out with his right foot and connected with the man’s face. The knife clattered as it struck the floor. The grip on Nick’s left leg loosened and the vagrant suddenly seemed to be vanishing backwards into the darkness like the victim in a supernatural horror movie. The old man screamed as he was swept backwards by an unseen force.
“You all right, counselor?”
Mendoza’s voice emanated from the blackness and then his face appeared in shadow.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Nick said, scrambling to his feet.
“Good.” Mendoza stepped past him toward the next car. “Let’s get the hell off this train as quickly as possible.”
They walked forward purposefully, pausing only to slide each door open so that they could exit one car and enter the next.
Finally, roughly midway through the train, they saw a glimmer of light.
“That’s got to be the station,” Mendoza said.
As soon as they could read the words CANAL STREET on one of the pillars, Mendoza turned toward a . . .
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